Google launches Chrome for Android

Google has announced a version of its Chrome browser for Android smartphones
and tablets, available immediately.

Chrome for Android, which is a beta release, replaces the existing browser on Google's mobile operating system. However, it is available only for those running the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android - around one per cent of users at present, though that number is increasing.

In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, Google's senior vice president for Chrome and apps, wrote: "Like the desktop version, Chrome for Android Beta is focused on speed and simplicity, but it also features seamless sign-in and sync so you can take your personalized web browsing experience with you wherever you go, across devices."

Pichai said that Google had built Chrome for Android "from the ground up" with mobile in mind. He said: "We reimagined tabs so they fit just as naturally on a small-screen phone as they do on a larger screen tablet. You can flip or swipe between an unlimited number of tabs using intuitive gestures, as if you’re holding a deck of cards in the palm of your hands, each one a new window to the web."

He emphasised the speed of Chrome for Android as well as a single sign-in feature that allows users to log-in and sync bookmarks between mobile and desktop versions of Chrome. The mobile browser will also automatically load any tabs that you had open on the desktop version of Chrome.

That move is likely to encourage more Android users to adopt Chrome on their desktop and laptop computers. At the end of last year Chrome overtook Firefox to become the second most popular web browser.

But its 27.3 per cent market share, according to Statcounter, still leaves it trailing Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which has 38.7 per cent of the browser market, though that share has been falling over recent years.